Construction and present status of KEKB superconducting cavities

The superconducting cavity (SCC) for KEKB is 508 MHz single-cell cavity that has large beam pipes (22 cm and 30 cm i.d.) so that higher-order modes propagate out of the cavity and be absorbed by a lossy material. The input coupler is the TRISTAN-type coaxial one with some modifications such that dc bias voltage can be applied to avoid multipactoring during beam operation, fins to efficiently cool the outer conductor and a heater to remove condensed gases. The higher-order mode absorber is made of ferrite directly sinter-bonded on the inner surface of the copper pipe using a technique called Hot Isostatic Press (HIP). One prototype cavity was tested up to 0.57 A at TRISTAN Accumulation Ring (AR) in 1996. Then, four cavities were constructed for KEKB. One of the cavities achieved an accelerating field of 19 MV/m at a test in a vertical cryostat; this field is the world record at this frequency to our knowledge. No degradation of the field after assembly into horizontal cryostats was observed up to the available power of 300 kW that corresponds to ∼12 MV/m. These four cavities were installed in KEKB tunnel and are expected to supply 6 MV in total voltage to the 1.1 A electron beam in high energy ring (HER). Since beam commissioning started in Dec. 1998, the system has been supplying 6 MV and working very smoothly without any trouble. The maximum current has been 0.51 A and power delivered to beam per cavity is 370-380 kW/cavity up to the end of Apr., 1999. (author)